


Take a Breath

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Bigby Wolf & Snow White, Character Study, Choices, Developing Relationship, Exhaustion, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Headcanon, Hidden Depths, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Introspection, Medical Procedures, Nightmares, Protectiveness, Recovery, taking care of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:24:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place between the end of the Crooked Man's trial and the epilogue. </p><p>Bigby's been through hell and back over the last few days, and with the Crooked Man finally being marched off to face justice, he can't stop it all from catching up to him. Most of the rest of Fabletown is wrapped up in trying to get back on track, maybe even get on to a better track. But as he stumbles on the long walk back to his apartment just after the trial, Bigby finds that there's still someone there to pick him up and drag him the rest of the way.</p><p>Snow stops by later. She and Colin have a conversation, one that leaves Snow with even more to think about. But one thing's for certain - she's not about to let Crane's dire predictions come true. She's not going to give up the important things in her life without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Breath

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know about all of you, but the direction Snow and Bigby's conversation took at the start of Chapter 4...yeah, it kind of pissed me off. And it seemed so out of character for Snow, too, given how otherwise supportive of Bigby she'd been, and how normal she'd acted around him despite knowing full well what he was.
> 
> Whereas my love for Colin and Bigby's Vitriolic Best Buds-type relationship went through the roof. I couldn't send him to the Farm after that. Not after we learned that he really did give a damn. 
> 
> This fic is my attempt to deal with all of those feels hitting me right out of nowhere. Hopefully, I convey them well.

Nobody was ever happy.

Bigby Wolf had accepted this as a fact of life, his own life included.

The Crooked Man had been sentenced – his punishment would be eternal imprisonment, far away on the Farm. Honestly, Bigby had been all for tossing him down the Witching Well right up until the point that the decision had been placed in his hands. After that, well…after that, he hadn’t had the stomach for it. A lot of Fables had died, these past few days, more than in longer than he liked to remember. If anyone should be adding more blood, it shouldn’t be him.

Maybe he’d only taken Auntie Greenleaf’s offer to ease his own conscience, but his conscience had packed on more than a few pounds since this whole mess began, and Bigby was starting to feel like he couldn’t breathe. Not just because of the lingering effects of the silver, either.

But of course, no one else had seen it that way. Beauty and Beast had gone right back to twittering about their debt problems, the Butcher about his shop, and those were the milder of the reactions in the room. Most everyone else had been howling for vengeance, for blood paid with blood, and they’d been more than happy to give him an earful even after the Crooked Man had been led away in chains. Snow had been too busy seeing to that, along with Auntie Greenleaf, to offer much help. Nerissa had gone with them to – to watch, she’d said, with a vicious little smile on her face.

No one could have blamed her for that much. Certainly, no one could have denied her that right, so they hadn’t.

Bigby hadn’t liked to do what he’d done next, but if he hadn’t bared his teeth as a warning he knew for certain he would have been baring his teeth for an attack next. That had made them back off quickly – over the last few days, he’d faced Georgie Porgie, the Tweedles, the Jersey Devil, and Bloody Mary…all at once. No one else even came close, and they knew it.

Not that he had that kind of effort in him anymore, but they didn’t need to know that.

Still feeling the fur itching under the surface of his skin, Bigby staggered to the elevator, their chattering receding far too slowly in his ears. For the moment, there were no more immediate, external problems for him to face, so he had no more excuses to ignore the internal ones. For a start, the fact that the vast majority of his internal organs were still little more than skillfully stitched-together hamburger. The fact that he hadn’t really slept for days was up there, too. He hadn’t, not really, he’d just been unconscious and that was not the same thing. Eating would be nice, too, maybe there was still someone delivering at this hour, though that meant he would also have had to stagger down to the door to meet them…

He could wait.

Even the faint “ding” of the elevator pounded in his head after all this mess. At some point during the few seconds he was waiting for it, Bigby had wound up bracing a hand against the wall. He couldn’t really remember doing that. He also couldn’t really believe it would be a good idea to stop, if he was being honest.

But finally, when he knew it was that or miss his stop, he managed to execute a controlled collapse into the car, stopping himself against the back wall before losing his footing entirely. With fumbling fingers that felt as clumsy as paws, he hit the button for his floor and settled back, just trying to breathe around a chest that was on fire with the memory and the reality of Bloody Mary’s wounds.

He wasn’t quite so graceful about getting out on his floor. Bigby felt the impact of hitting the floor only dully, and decided to himself that it wasn’t so bad here after all. He felt the faint nudge of the elevator door moving his shoe aside, and then didn’t feel anything more for a while.

* * *

When Bigby came to, he was moving again. That seemed somewhat strange, given that the floor was at the wrong angle, and his feet didn’t seem to be moving, and overall he still felt as boneless as a jellyfish and weak as a puppy.

Someone was speaking. He couldn’t quite make out the words.

Then his mind came to enough to start receiving some very definite input from his nose – the scent of pig was all around him. Once upon a time, that would have made him nearly drown in his own saliva, and even now, the memory of the Big Bad Wolf licked its chops. But Bigby shoved that memory back into a dark corner where it _belonged_.

“Colin,” he said aloud, though it came out more of a mumble.

“Brmphmph,” said Colin, because his mouth was fixed around the back of Bigby’s shirt, as he continued dragging him towards the open door of his apartment.

Bigby let himself get dragged a few more feet, but now that his mind was awake, it was spinning in some strange circles, drunk on his own exhaustion. “Colin, I‘ve always wanted to ask this…if you can drag someone like me, why did you waste time with straw way back then?”

Colin’s reply was similarly muffled, but it sounded reassuringly impolite.

Most people didn’t actually know that Bigby had a bed. Hell, sometimes Bigby forgot that he had a bed. The mattress creaked and the sheets were usually dusty from disuse, because he never let himself use it during a case. But it let him stretch out in a way that his battered old chair never could, and better pretend that he was asleep when he passed out from exhaustion or pain when either one finally caught up with him.

Colin dragged him inside, dragged him the short distance to the closed bedroom door. He let Bigby go for a moment, then managed to stand upright just long enough to turn the knob with his teeth and nudge the door open with his shoulder. That done, he grabbed the back of the sheriff’s shirt again and dragged him the rest of the way towards the bed before letting him fall again.

“I’m good, but I’m not that good,” said the pig. “Come on, up and at ‘em.”

Bigby understood. Bracing one hand on the floor, he grabbed his sheets in the other, enough to drag himself just a little more upright. From there, it was possible to haul himself the rest of the way up and onto the bed. From there, he just managed to drag his head onto his pillow before the last of his strength gave out entirely, and Bigby slumped bonelessly with an exhausted sigh.

One of his hands was still dangling over the edge of the bed. Colin pressed his back up against Bigby’s palm, in a gesture that neither of them would ever admit was a reassurance. A “ _you’re not alone”_ , even if the only person here with him was a goddamn pig. But sometimes, that goddamn pig was the only one he could rely on to even get this close. “Think you can keep your eyes open long enough to give Swiney a call?”

Bigby pondered the question for a moment, but finally shook his head. “Speed dial,” he croaked. “Three.” Even without thumbs, Colin should be able to manage that.

“Don’t blame me if I break something.” But, in the shifting shadows that had been made of his vision, Bigby saw the bulk of Colin turn and trot back into the living room. Assured that he was in the best possible hands, so to speak, Bigby surrendered the fight to keep his eyes open.

* * *

He didn’t remember much of the next several hours. Mostly, what he remembered were impressions, sensations, snapshots of reality that he took in his brief moments of lucidity before exhaustion and pain dragged him under again. But he barely needed to have his eyes open anymore to recognize Doctor Swineheart’s presence. Occasionally he was aware of being spoken to, and tried to answer the best that he could, so they knew he was still with them. Otherwise, the doctor’s hands were sure but careful, changing bandages, stitching wounds. He hadn’t actually sustained anything worse than that since the doctor’s last visit, but his injuries from his first encounter with the Tweedles and Bloody Mary were still paining him, all the more now that he no longer had any cause to ignore them.

“I won’t even bother to ask if you plan on getting some rest,” he thought he remembered the doctor saying, his tone more arch than usual to hide his concern.

“No promises,” Bigby managed to reply. “But I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed right along with you.”

Having his blood-soaked bandages changed for clean ones made him feel a good ten pounds lighter. Perhaps taking advantage of these rare moments of compliance from the Big Bad Wolf, Swineheart even ordered him off the bed while he changed the sheets for the first time in maybe two months. Bigby was more than happy to let him, sitting slumped against the wall and watching the doctor work, wondering idly even then if this was all a dream. Colin sat beside him. Bigby might have been leaning against him, a little.

The pig snorted when Bigby voiced aloud his musings that this was all a dream. “Please. Like you’ve got that kind of imagination.”

Bigby was forced to concede the point with a half-nod. Most of his dreams tended to feature old cases, or even made-up cases if he’d run those old paths too many times. If it wasn’t a case, it was memories of the Homelands, everything he’d done, reminding him just why people were terrified of him even now. Old hunts that woke him up panting and starving.

Wolves weren’t supposed to dream much beyond that.

He certainly didn’t have the imagination to conjure up a dream of being taken care of. So it had to be really happening.

Maybe after another nap, he’d figure out how he felt about that.

Bigby thought he at least managed a coherent affirmative to the doctor’s instructions for the days to come, but knew that he’d have to trust Colin to remember anything serious enough to bother with. Beyond that, he was helped by both pig and man back into bed, and allowed to collapse onto clean sheets. Swineheart stayed just long enough to help him take some _Barmecidal ambrosia_ , and then he turned to go.

“Got any takeout on speed dial, or are we both sharing that bottle of ketchup?” Colin asked, over the sound of the door closing behind Swineheart.

“Speed dial four.”

“It’s like you knew I’d be coming. Get some rest, Bigby. I’ll save you some leftovers.”

* * *

_As his body recovered, his dreams became more physical, more tangible…and more recent._

_Bloody Mary raised a silver gun and smiled with teeth of glass. The Tweedles stood at the other end of an alleyway that stretched on forever, firing again and again and his chest was on fire with the memory of pain. The Jersey Devil’s teeth clattered and clacked, and he lowered horns caked in the Woodsman’s blood for another charge. Georgie Porgie was drowning in blood, and Vivian’s severed head was sobbing while her body lay nearby like a stringless puppet._

_Then her head became Faith’s, Lilly’s, Nerissa’s,_ Snow’s _…_

_The Crooked Man smiled, turned a wheel, and Bigby’s bones broke. Then he was the one in handcuffs, and the mob was howling for his blood, and he couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe, and and and…_

_But each time, when he felt like he was going to drown, he felt a light pressure against the palm of his hand that hadn’t been there before. He smelled pig, not death, and if that sent his mind turning back to old hunts before it had all gotten so damn complicated, well…it was better than dreams of being helpless._

* * *

“’Bout damn time you decided to show up.”

Snow’s cheeks colored with indignation at the greeting from the pig who had opened Bigby’s door, but she bit her tongue and counted to three. After all, it wasn’t as though he didn’t have a point, a point she’d berated herself with all during the elevator ride down.

“I’ve been…busy,” she said, and regretted the words instantly for the bad taste they left in her mouth. Unbidden, traitorous, Crane’s words echoed in her mind, _you won’t be in that chair five minutes_ , but she shook her head to chase them out. “But I’m here now.”

Colin made a disgusted sort of noise, but stepped aside to let her through. “‘Busy’. Yeah, well, believe it or not, I’ve been pretty busy myself. Mostly in helping to piece my _friend_ back together.”

Some of Snow’s incredulity must have shown on her face, because Colin actually seemed to bristle. He jerked his snout towards the open door of Bigby’s bedroom. Snow couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever seen it open, let alone seen Bigby in his bed. “You see him in there? That’s a pretty big improvement for where I found him sprawled in front of the elevator, if you ask me! Which no one ever does. How long would it have taken one of you to notice, if you didn’t just step over him instead? _I_ called Swineheart, _I_ ordered food, _I’ve_ been giving him a friendly nudge every time he…”

“Thank you.”

Colin stopped dead, mid-rant. He stared at Snow in what looked like genuine shock for a moment, mouth hanging open. Then he gave his head a little shake, closing his mouth so forcibly that his teeth clicked together. “I didn’t do it for thanks.” He turned around and trotted towards Bigby’s old chair, heaving himself up onto it without any further preamble.

Since Snow didn’t find herself actively prevented from entering, she did so, closing the door behind her. “Well…too bad. I’m thanking you.”

“How nice for you. Is that it?”

“I wanted to see how he was doing.”

Colin nodded towards the open bedroom door once more, though Snow got the very distinct impression that she’d be facing rather more resistance if she tried to go inside. Still, it was easy enough to see him from here. There were evident signs of Doctor Swineheart’s care. His shirt had been removed, revealing clean bandages beneath that all but covered his torso entirely. Yet despite injuries that would have crippled a lesser Fable, he was clearly sleeping the sleep of the happily drugged.

That was…good to see. It wasn’t as though she liked pushing him as hard as she sometimes did, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say watching and saying nothing as he pushed himself. And it was sometimes distressingly easy to believe it when he brushed off any concerns with “I’m fine” or “I’ll be okay”, as he did so often that Snow was getting a dark suspicion that it was entirely force of habit. But it was _easy_ , so treacherously easy, to look at Bigby and see the Big Bad Wolf of the Homelands, an enduring titan of fang and claw and primal strength with the power of the North Wind at his back.

It was so easy to forget that they were all less now than they’d once been.

“All right. You’ve seen him,” said Colin, drawing her out of her regretful thoughts. “What are you still doing here?”

Now it was Snow’s turn to bristle. “You know, call it a sneaking suspicion, but I’m starting to get the impression that you don’t like me all that much. And _not_ just because I’m going to put you back on the Farm where you belong!”

“Give the lady a prize! As a matter of fact, I’m not feeling all that fond of any of you right now! Not after the way you’ve been treating my friend! _Especially_ you!”

Snow drew back as though she’d been slapped – it certainly felt as though she had been. By rights, Colin shouldn’t even be here, and yet he of all Fables was lecturing her on mistreating Bigby? The wolf who had once blown down his house and eaten him? The man who had worked so closely with her and so hard on this case, probably the only reason she hadn’t driven herself mad these past few days. “ _Me?_ ”

Her shock, her hurt, must have shown on her face, because Colin slowly, reluctantly, settled himself back down on the chair with a derisive snort.

“It’s been bugging me. What you said to him.”

Snow took a deliberately deep breath, forcing herself to settle as well. If Colin was going to talk, she might as well listen. Not least because it had been much too long a day to get lectured by a pig, and not least because she really was worried he was right. “I’ve said a lot of things to Bigby during this case. Can you be more specific?”

“‘Hey, Bigby, thanks for half-killing yourself at my beck and call on this case, sorry you got shot full of lead and silver, but you know that thing you do that you can’t control but wound up saving your life? Yeah, don’t do that anymore. That was _scary._ ’”

 _Oh_.

“It’s not…” Snow began, and then stopped. She opened her mouth to try again, but the words still wouldn’t come. How could they? It was a fear that went deeper than words, to the pure, animal hindbrain and instincts from the dawn of time.

She was surprised that Colin, of all people, was saying this. Snow had never been on the wrong side of those _teeth_.

“It’s not about _fear_ ,” she said, hoping that was true, knowing that it wasn’t. At least, not entirely. “It’s…it’s about control. And trust. And not answering blood with blood. What happened in that alleyway might have been…necessary, in that moment, and ultimately to a good purpose. But he needs to remember that it _can’t_ be that way anymore. Just because he _can_ solve his problems by tearing them to pieces, that doesn’t mean he should. I don’t want him slipping back into…old habits.” The words came somewhat lamely, after an awkward pause. They were the most delicate way she could think to describe centuries of blood and terror. “I don’t want those moments to be easy.”

“Trust me. They’re _not_. And he can control himself just fine. Not the transformations, maybe, but the hunger. The Wolf. In fact, he could probably control himself even better if everyone eased up.”

Now it was Snow’s turn to snort. “You’re one to talk.”

“I’m his _friend_. I’m _allowed_ to give him shit. Look, think of it like this. If you want a dog to tolerate a leash, do you pull on it so hard the poor thing starts choking?”

“Bigby’s not a _dog_.”

“Yeah, he is. Something that’s a little bit of wolf and a little bit of human is a whole lot of dog. And lady, you’ve been holding his leash ever since you cut him with that knife.”

What could you even say to something like that? Snow drew back sharply, folding her arms tightly in front of her in a gesture that was obviously defensive. Her gaze darted every which way, as though she could find an escape from having to answer.

If only life could ever be that easy.

Colin, perversely, seemed to take some pity on her in that moment. He let out a huff, twisting and turning on the chair until he could rest his snout on the armrest, staring out the window. “He _did_ go full-on Big Bad at some point tonight.”

Snow felt as though the bottom had just dropped out of her stomach. “He _what?_ How do you know?”

“I can smell it on him. The fact that you can’t, and the fact that the world didn’t end in a bloodbath…should tell you something, shouldn’t it? If I had to guess, it was probably Bloody Mary who pushed him to it. Or the Jersey Devil. Or the Tweedles. Or all of them at once.”

“But he’s…okay?”

“Now that Swiney’s been in to stitch him back up, sure.”

“Good. That’s…good.” The fact that he’d apparently fallen fully back into the role of Big Bad Wolf for _just long enough_ to deal with the Crooked Man’s henchmen was…even better. She felt a tension leaving her shoulders that she’d almost forgotten was there. So it was easier for Snow to add, “Thank you, Colin, for telling me.”

“Sure.”

“This doesn’t mean I’m not sending you back to the Farm.”

“It never does. And that’s not going to stop me from sneaking back here the second I get the chance.”

Snow sighed, already feeling her headache returning. “So long as we’re agreed.”

“You’re wondering why he puts up with me.”

“A little.” There was no point in hiding that. Fifteen minutes with the pig, and Snow already felt the need for a stiff drink.

“Easy. It’s because I put up with him.”

That did get Snow to look back at Colin, eyebrows raised. “Run that by me again,” she said, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

Colin waved a trotter airily. “I mean, yeah, sure, he owes me a house, I’m not gonna let him forget that any time soon. But there’s a reason I always make it a point to stop by here on my ‘days out’. And that’s because I’m just about the only Fable who would ever ‘dare’ to set foot in here that’s not a doctor or his boss. He knows that, and I know that, and I know that he likes the company no matter how much he growls. Besides, it’s not like I’d ever get to see him otherwise.” Here he shot Snow a very deliberate look. Snow met his gaze, but it was more of an effort than she would have liked to admit.

She had always wondered, why upon escaping somehow Colin always wound up with the one man who would be charged with taking him back.

“You know why that has to be.”

“So they keep telling me.” Colin closed his eyes, still resting his snout on the arm rest, and Snow had the very definite impression that she was being dismissed. That was…galling, but fine, as she found herself both wrung out and wound up from this particular conversation. “We’ll keep in touch.”

“Yes. We will.” Snow turned on her heel and made to depart, but faltered in her steps the moment she passed the open bedroom door, the Sheriff of Fabletown still sleeping heavily in the room beyond. He looked…peaceful, or at least no longer in pain, and that tugged at her heart more than she’d expected it to.

Even for Bigby, recovering would clearly be a bit of a trial. And yet, when Snow looked away, the first thing she saw were take-out cartons of cheap Chinese food on the table, settled around the ash tray full of stubbed-out Huff&Puffs.

“I know Crane always made sure to get _him_ paid, at least,” she murmured, almost to herself. Casting another look around the cramped, dingy little apartment, Snow found herself asking aloud: “Where does it all go?”

“Believe it or not, he likes having the smallest place here. He told me once it makes it feel more like a den. As for the rest…” Colin rolled his eyes. “Between Crane and a few of the Crooked Man’s associates who probably won’t be needing it anymore, he’s probably dug up, what? A cold thousand these past couple of days? I know a good chunk of that went to Toad, he’s planning on paying Holly back for damages to the Trip Trap, and the rest probably found its way into the hands of whichever of Georgie’s girls he happened to cross paths with. ‘Money talks’, as they say, and sometimes Bigby relies a little too much on letting it talk to people for him.”

Snow grimaced even as she felt her heart skip with something like…yes, call it affection, even if she could only call it as much in the privacy of her own head. “He needs to take better care of himself.”

“And I need a new house. Neither of those things is likely to happen any time soon, Snow.”

Snow White made a decision. She pulled out her wallet, counted out a handful of bills, and set them down with some decisiveness on the table. “That’s for _food_ , okay?” she said sternly, looking back at Colin. “Not booze, not those awful cigarettes he smokes, not bleeding himself dry for everyone else. That’s for him to get something reasonable to eat for once. I trust you’ll be sure to convey as much.”

It could sometimes be hard to tell, on a pig’s face, but she thought she saw Colin smile. She even thought he might have meant it as something other than scornful. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Good.” In fact, it felt like the first good thing she’d done all day so far. “We’re going to do a better job taking care of our own. And that should start with him.”

“We’ll see about that. But we’ll call this a solid start.”

Snow could only hope it was. But Bigby seemed to be in the best possible hands, so to speak, and she was still…very busy. It might have been a solid start, but there were still a great many other Fables that needed more than a start.

Hoping to herself that this would not be the last she’d see of Bigby Wolf from the right side of a desk, Snow saw herself out of the apartment, leaving Colin to settle in once more into Bigby’s chair and continue keeping watch on his friend.


End file.
